


Like a Duck on a June Bug

by Endangered_Slug



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Brotp, Gen, Mise en place!, You know it's bad when he refuses to take your money, sheep boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 18:58:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2121066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endangered_Slug/pseuds/Endangered_Slug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumple puts the wrong ingredient into a potion with the result that he imprints on the first person he sees: Charming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Duck on a June Bug

**Author's Note:**

> I guess we're having a BroTP frenzy week and I'm okay with that. The Charming Gold BroTP is important and must be nurtured. The result is, I accidentally prompted myself.

 

 

 

 

The sign on his shop was flipped to CLOSED. It had been flipped to CLOSED all day so he could work in some peace and quiet and he intended on staying CLOSED until he was done with said work. His very delicate, very expensive, very private work.

 

His very much closed-for-the-day-call-again-tomorrow-dearie shop, which was why he was irritated beyond reason when he'd heard the bell jingle and the unmistakable clopping of Charming's boots. He knew Charming had grown up in poverty and therefore had probably never learned to read, but he also knew his cursed memories would have supplied the knowledge to him so why the hell couldn't he stay out when he was CLOSED?

 

“Rumplestiltskin?” Charming called out as if he wasn't well aware that he was in the back.

 

Gold sighed heavily. There was no getting out of it he supposed. “Back here, dearie! As you very well know, you sodding clod-dweller,” he muttered under his breath. He was brewing a potion and he couldn't take his eyes off of it so much as a breath's span without it boiling over or fizzling short or going horribly awry so he accepted that Charming was invading his back room with as much grace as he could muster, which is to say, none.

 

“It seems that today is opposite day,” he said snapped when David stepped into the room. “Because I am positive my sign says closed. Not that it matters, every day is opposite day when it comes to my sign,” he grumbled.

 

“If you didn't want people barging in why don't you lock the door?” David asked, reasonably.

 

Gold smiled, all teeth and threats of snaildom. “Because, dearie, I'm a powerful sorcerer and I don't have to lock the door.”

 

“It's obvious that you do.”

 

“What do you want?” Gold asked, now very irritated that David had pointed out the obvious when it was also plain that people thought of him as public property and therefore accessible at all hours of the day no matter what he was doing. So he tuned him out. Whatever David wanted wasn't as important as what he was doing anyway.

 

He nodded his head intermittently to lull Charming into thinking that he was paying attention and it must have worked because there were no more interruptions to his concentration for about thirty seconds.

 

Blast it all, he'd left the mermaid's tears on the next table. Mise en place! How many times had he insisted on it? And then the one day he forgot of course he was brewing a sensitive potion. He remembered David, who was still yammering away about something. An army of yaks heading toward town? What? He didn't know. He didn't care, but he could make use of David's presence at least.

 

“Do me a favor, dearie,” he said, interrupting him mid-sentence. “Hand me the sapphire bottle over on that shelf over there would you?”

 

David stopped, nonplussed. “What are you making anyway?”

 

“Ent repellent,” he quipped with a smirk, not looking up to see Charming's reaction.

 

“Ent repel— Hey, wait a minute, you didn't sell this formula to Monsanto did you?”

 

Gold very nearly blasted the man into smithereens. “I'm not that evil!” he said, grossly offended. “It's a homing spell. Very delicate work or it will backfire, which is why I am currently not turning you into a snail right now. If you would please,” he said testily. “The bottle?”

 

“The blue one?”

 

“Sapphire, dearie. _Sapphire_.”

 

“Isn't sapphire blue?”

 

Rumple sighed and would have closed his eyes to ward off the impending migraine, but he had to keep them on his potion. “Yes, it is, but I need the one made from sapphire. Carved from it specifically.”

 

He held out his hand and felt a smooth, cool bottle placed in his hands. He didn't even glance at it, just uncorked it with his teeth (never a good idea in general when it came to potions, but he was a powerful sorcerer after all, and the gold tooth acted as a baffle against accidental poisonings) and poured it into the cauldron.

 

Everything was good for about half a second and then the world tilted to the left and turned purple. He blinked the smoke out of his eyes, furious. Both at Charming and his inability to tell sapphire from cobalt but mostly at himself for not having his ingredients set up properly and then not even taking the quarter of second he needed to make sure he had the right one before dumping it into his potion like a novice.

 

Shit.

 

He blinked again, the world slowly coming back into focus and he heard David speaking as if from the other end of a mile long tunnel.

 

“What?”

 

“I asked if you were okay. That wasn't supposed to happen was it?”

 

He shook his head. “No, it bloody well _wasn't_ supposed to happen you imbecilic sheph—” he looked up and the whole world shifted back to rights, zeroing in on Charming. “Whoa. Hey!”

 

“Hey?” Charming repeated, puzzled. He had his hands held out as if to ward off any fireball Gold would be hurling at him. Any second now.

 

“Yes, hey!" He smiled widely. "How _are_ you?”

 

“I'm... good? How are _you_?”

 

Oh, Charming was definitely worried now. That was his worry frowny face and Gold didn't like to see it.

 

“I'm just dandy! I feel really good right now.” He did, too. Everything was put into perspective now that he was looking at Charming, frowny face or not.

 

"You're sure? Wasn't that important?"

 

Gold looked down at the smoking cauldron and the scorched work table. "Yes, it was! Very important indeed.” He waved that aside as if he had been merely playing with bottle caps. “But you were telling me something and I'm afraid I've forgotten. Could you please repeat yourself?"

 

Charming eyed him as if waiting for the punchline, but none was forthcoming. "Er... The dwarves have found a new vein of fairy dust."

 

“Yes, that's terribly important!” he said, jovially. “Very much so. What's the problem?”

 

“Well, the vein is there but they're having difficulty getting it out of the rock. It seems they've also discovered a new type of diamond just on top of it...”

 

“Yes?”

 

“And the fairies—“

 

“Lovely ladies!” he interjected. “They do good work.”

 

Charming stared at him at a complete loss for words.

 

Gold rolled his hand for him to continue. “The fairies, dearie?”

 

“They...”

 

“Yes? Out with it,” he said with a very distinct giggle.

 

“Need the dust?”

 

“Of course they do!”

 

David took a deep breath and blurted out, “so the dwarves were wondering if you could help them remove the ore from the rock. But no one wanted to actually come up here to... ask. Are you _sure_ you're feeling well?”

 

The frowny face deepened into Intensely Worried and Gold hastened to put him at ease.

 

“It's so kind of you to ask. But I assure you,” he waved a finger under Charming's nose. “I'm just fit as a fiddle. I happen to have several very fine fiddles here in the shop. Do you want one? No charge.”

 

“I don't play the fiddle,” he said.

 

“I have a spell that would allow you to play anything you want. Free of charge!”

 

“Er... no. Just something to get through the diamond layer.” He dug out his phone.

 

“Who are you calling?” Gold asked as he pulled out a drawer full of rattling objects. He rifled around them looking for something specific.

 

“Your wife,” David said with another worried glance. “I think that potion did something to your brain.” To his credit David didn't even blink when his arm went in up to his shoulder. Rumpelstiltskin was a magical being and of course he had cursed memories of watching Mary Poppins.

 

“Oh, There's no need for that! Why bother Belle? She's having fun with her friends,” he said before pulling out a heavy burlap sack. “Here we are! A sack of diamond dust.”

 

Charming sighed heavily. “More dust?”

 

“It's diamond dust. Very rare. Very costly. Just sprinkle it over the the dwarves' pickaxes and they'll be able to cut through that pesky strata like butter. After all, the only thing that cuts diamond is diamond. Here you go.”

 

He offered it to David with both hands and an eager to please face that looked almost obscene on the man.

 

No, scratch that. Very obscene.

 

David glanced back at the blue bottle then back at Gold. He wondered what the odds were his surviving with all his entrails in their proper place if he took advantage of this new, pliable Rumpelstiltskin because of course this wouldn't last. Would it?

 

He took the bag gingerly from Rumplestiltskin's hands and cradled it in front of him. The diamond dust smelled of magic and made his nose itch like crazy. “Thank you. I'll just... get this to the mines then,” he said, sidling toward the door for a quick get away.

 

“Can I come?” Gold asked eagerly.

 

“ _What_?”

 

“Can I come with you?” He was practically bouncing on his feet so eager was he to accompany Charming. “I'd love to see you work.”

 

“No!”

 

At Gold's crestfallen face, he amended, “I need you to stay here. Just in case we have an emergency. I need to know where to find you.”

 

“You'd know where I was if I was with you though,” Gold pointed out.

 

David nodded his head as if considering this. “Yes. Yes, that is true. But the best place for you is here. At...” he thought quickly. “Headquarters.”

 

Gold smiled even wider. They were going to play a game! And he was important enough to be in charge! “That sounds very important!”

 

“It is! Very, _very_ important.” He was halfway to the curtain before he stopped. Damn, he couldn't just leave without asking. There was always a loophole. “How much for the dust, then?”

 

Rumple thought that was a silly question. Why would he ever ask David for money? “No charge. It's a gift.”

 

David seemed to think about it for a minute before replying, “Can I get that in writing?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Belle entered the shop from the back door. “Rumple? Are you still here?”

 

“In the front, Belle!”

 

She made her way to the front and put a hand to her mouth to hide the smile. He'd rearranged everything – the counters shelves had vanished who knows where and in their place was one large table set with a to-scale model of Storybrooke and its various population. Placed at precise intervals on the walls were twenty-four world clocks and more maps of the outlying areas including, yes, on the back was was a map of the Enchanted Forrest as they once knew it with its corresponding clock. She didn't know how Rumple knew what time it was back home, but it wasn't important at the moment. The windows were covered with camouflage netting and Rumple... She looked around for him but couldn't find him. Then she looked up. Well, he took this very seriously, she had to give him credit for that at least.

 

“That's a nice trench you dug in front of the store, Rumple,” she started with.

 

“David said I was in charge!”

 

“And you're doing such a good job of it. But you know, Rumple, David gave me a message for you. Please come down.”

 

He jumped from the rafters and landed lightly in front of her all cat-like grace. “A message!” He wiggled his fingers in anticipation. “What is it?”

 

“You have to kiss me.”

 

He made a face and she would have been hurt if she didn't know that he was currently not in his right mind. “Yes. He said it would unlock a very special secret.”

 

“ _Really?_ ” he asked, breathless with excitement.

 

“Really!” she promised, putting her hands on his shoulders to bring him closer. She closed her eyes and touched her lips to his. “It's the best secret in the world,” she murmured before pressing further until their arms were entwined and nothing could come between them.

 

He whimpered softly against her lips and she could feel the spell leaving his bewitched mind.

 

“Kiss me again,” she said, pushing the hair back from his face so she could gauge how well he was feeling. “It's working.”

 

“What's working?” he asked but just then, as her lips met his once again, the giddy feeling fled from his eyes and the reality of what he'd done slammed into him like a wrecking ball.

 

“Oh no,” he groaned.

 

Belle giggled against his mouth. “Oh yes, from what I've heard.”

 

Gold put a hand to his throbbing head. “Who else did he tell?”

 

“Just me. And Snow. And Emma was there and so was Ruby and Ariel and Granny and, well, pretty much everyone—”

 

He gently pushed her away and stumbled into the back toward his work bench. He pointed a finger at the cauldron, firing it up before throwing ingredients into it.

 

“What are you doing?” Belle asked, laughing at him.

 

“I'm making a forgetting potion.” As if it wasn't the most obvious thing in the world.

 

She smirked at him. “You're not going to get everyone to take it, Rumple. Be reasonable.”

 

He looked up, his hair falling in his face, which was white with anger. “It's not for everyone, sweetheart.”

 

“Well, then—”

 

“It's for _me_.”

 


End file.
